ABSTRACT
Violence has multifactorial causes and is a biopsychosocial environmental phenomenon. Clearly all behaviour has a biochemical basis, but while biochemical abnormalities can cause psychological symptoms, including aggression, there is also increasing evidence that psychological events, e.g. severe abuse in childhood or severe psychological trauma in adulthood, may cause neurobiological abnormalities, e.g. in serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine, 5-HT) metabolism in adults. Models of violence are shown in Table 15.1. No model can explain adequately all violence, and some models are more appropriate than others for different situations.
